Gram-Scale Synthesis of Heteroatom-Doped Carbon-Supported Pt Nanoparticles as Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution and Oxygen Reduction Reactions

Engineering metal–support interaction (MSI) by heteroatom doping is a promising strategy to enhance the activity and stability of Pt electrocatalysts. However, scalable synthesis of heteroatom-doped carbon-supported Pt catalysts from milligrams to grams is still a serious challenge due to easy agglomeration of Pt nanoparticles. Here, a dual-effect strategy of CoN4-anchoring sites and a NaCl barrier agent for the preparation of typical Ptx/CoNC electrocatalysts with ultrafine Pt nanoparticles (2–3 nm) and low loading mass (2.5–10 wt %) is proposed. Gram-scale controllable synthesis (>5 g/batch) is successfully achieved. Ptx/CoNC exhibits excellent electrocatalytic properties to HER and ORR. The NaCl barrier agent effectively inhibits Pt agglomeration, which is beneficial to maintaining good electrocatalytic properties of Ptx/CoNC during gram-scale synthesis. The CoN4-anchoring sites confine Pt nanoparticles and prevent Pt agglomeration while strengthening the interaction between Pt nanoparticles and carbon supports, which enhances the properties of Ptx/CoNC. This work proposes an effective strategy for gram-scale preparation of heteroatom-doped carbon-supported Pt catalysts with excellent electrocatalytic properties.